Background of the name

Author Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase Beat Generation sometime around 1948 to describe his friends and as a general term describing the underground, anti-conformist youth gathering in New York at that time to the novelist John Clellon Holmes (who published an early novel about the beat generation, titled Go, in 1952, along with a manifesto of sorts in the New York Times Magazine: "This is the beat generation"). The adjective beat (introduced to the group by Herbert Huncke) had the connotations of "tired" or "down and out," but Kerouac added the paradoxical connotations of upbeat, beatific, and the musical association of being "on the beat."

As a "Generation"

Calling this relatively small group of struggling writers, students, hustlers, and drug addicts a "generation" was to make the claim that they were representative and important—the beginnings of a new trend, analogous to the influential Lost Generation.

In trying to define the "Beat Generation", it is important to note that the term was originally used to refer not only to Kerouac's inner circle, but to the burgeoning counter-culture as well.

As a small group of friends

The press used the term in reference to a small group of writers, the friends of Ginsberg, Kerouac, or Burroughs. A joke among Beat writers (attributed to both Gregory Corso and Gary Snyder) persisted in various forms: "Three friends does not make a generation." A narrow definition of the Beat Generation would include only those who consistently defined themselves as "Beat" writers: Ginsberg, Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky, etc. If "Beat Generation" is defined broadly, the smaller group is called "The New York Beats." In this sense, movements like the San Francisco Renaissance and the Black Mountain poets would be separate movements.

As a large group of writers

Defined broadly, (the way William Blake is defined as a Romantic poet), other writers who reached prominence in the late 1950s, early 1960s, who shared many of the same themes, ideas, intentions, etc. (for example, dedication to spontaneity, open-form composition, subjectivity, and so on), would also be included.

The press mistakenly pointed to Ginsberg and Kerouac as leaders. This has often led to confusion about who actually should be included in the so-called "Beat Generation." Writers who qualify as part of the "Beat Generation" might deny they were ever a part of it, based on this limiting definition the press gave it. For example, they may say that they were friends of Ginsberg and Kerouac, not followers. Orlovsky had little connection with New York. William S. Burroughs, one of the most important figures of this group, always adamantly denied he was a part of the "Beat Generation," but an accurate list of the close inner circle would have to include him. Even Kerouac in his later career denied that he was part of the "Beat Generation."

Friendship, or at least a brief association, with Ginsberg or Kerouac would be an indication that a writer belongs in this broadly defined list of "Beat" writers. This list would include:

* certain poets associated with the San Francisco Renaissance such as Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Lew Welch, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Harold Norse, Kirby Doyle;
* Michael McClure;
* surrealist poets Philip Lamantia and Ted Joans;
* poets associated with the Black Mountain College such as Robert Creeley, Denise Levertov, Robert Duncan (though Duncan was one of the most vocal early critics of the "Beat Generation" label);
* New York School poets such as Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch;
* poets who are occasionally called the "second wave" of the Beat Generation such as LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Diane DiPrima, Anne Waldman;
* many others, including: Bob Kaufman, Tuli Kupferberg, Ed Sanders, John Wieners, Jack Micheline, Ray Bremser and Bonnie Bremser/Brenda Frazer, Ed Dorn, Jack Spicer, David Meltzer, Richard Brautigan, Lenore Kandel
* many previously underappreciated female writers who are now receiving more attention such as Joanne Kyger, Kaye McDonough, Harriet Sohmers Zwerling, Janine Pommy Vega, Elise Cowen.
* A few younger writers who were acquaintances of the aforementioned writers (such as Bob Dylan, Ken Kesey, Jim Carroll, Ron Padgett) are occasionally included in this list.
* Charles Bukowski has a tenuous place on this list since his association is slight.
* Several older writers were very closely associated with members of the "Beat Generation", though their reputations were solidified so much earlier that it is difficult to call them part of the same "generation." They include Kenneth Rexroth the principal figure involved in the San Francisco Renaissance, and Charles Olson the corresponding chief figure of the Black Mountain School of poetry. Also, so many of these writers either studied personally with William Carlos Williams or looked up to Williams as an idol and followed his admonition to speak with an American voice, that Beat writers are often seen as being the children of Williams.

Characterization

By any definition, the members of the Beat Generation were new bohemian ecstatic epicureans, who often engaged in spontaneous creativity. The style of their work may seem chaotic, but the chaos was purposeful; it highlighted the primacy of such Beat Generation essentials as spontaneity, open emotion, visceral engagement in often gritty worldly experiences. The Beat writers produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy of non-conformity and for its non-conforming style.

Allen Ginsberg, a Beat Generation writer

The first "Beat" work to gain nationwide attention was Ginsberg's "Howl." An obscenity-trial helped fuel its fame. One of the most enduringly famous "Beat" works, Kerouac's On the Road (written in 1952), which heralded the beginning of "Beat" popularity, was not published until 1957, in a sense capitalizing on the fame brought by the "Howl" obscenity-trial. Burroughs' magnum opus, Naked Lunch , likewise went to trial for obscenity. Both obscenity-trials helped to liberalize the kinds of books that could be legally published in the United States. It changed the definition of "obscene" for all types of media, including books paintings, sculptures, such as the Provocations exhibit that was nearly banned in California. From then on, if anything was deemed to have literary value, it was no longer considered obscene.

Echoes of the Beat Generation run throughout all the forms of alternative/counter culture that have existed since then (e.g. "hippies," "punks," etc). Also, since the "Beat Generation" had so much direct influence on rock-musicians (the spelling of the name "Beatles" is a sign of this), they had a hand in fostering the image of the rebellious rock-star. The Beat Generation can be seen as the first modern subculture and the first fully American literary movement since the Transcendentalists. See the "Influences on Western Culture" section below.

History

The members of the narrowly defined "Beat Generation" met in New York: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, (in the 1940s) and later (in 1950) Gregory Corso (hence why they were called the "New York Beats" though only Corso was from New York). Though endless travel around the country is part of their romanticized image, most of the central figures (excluding Burroughs) ended up together in San Francisco in the mid-1950s where they met and became friends with figures associated with the San Francisco Renaissance such as Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, Harold Norse, Lew Welch, and Kirby Doyle. There they met many other poets who had migrated to San Francisco because it had a reputation as an important new center of creativity. This included Bob Kaufman who was the first to actually be called a "beatnik." Also of significance were Philip Lamantia, Tuli Kupferberg, and members of the recently dissolved Black Mountain College looking for a new center of communal creativity, poets such as Robert Creeley, Edward Dorn, and Robert Duncan.

Many writers were inspired by the publication of "Howl" and On the Road and decided to join the group. The Beats met most of these writers when they returned to New York: John Wieners, LeRoi Jones, Diane DiPrima, Anne Waldman. The New York School of poets (including Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery, and James Schuyler, though Ashbery and Schuyler weren't quite as closely associated with the Beats), which had already been established as a movement in New York, found much in common with this ever-widening circle and consistently promoted one another's work.

Perhaps equally important were the less obviously creative members of the scene, who helped form their intellectual environment and provided the writers with much of their content: There was Herbert Huncke, a drug-addict and petty thief whom Burroughs had met in 1946, who introduced the word "beat" and a lot more junky-lingo and the junky lifestyle; Lucien Carr, who was key to introducing many of the central figures to one another; and Hal Chase, an anthropologist from Denver, who, in 1947, introduced into the group Neal Cassady, the hero and symbol of the American dream idolized in much Beat literature.

Also important were the oft-neglected women in the original circle, including Joan Vollmer and Edie Parker. Their apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan often functioned as a salon (or as Ted Morgan puts it, a "pre-sixties commune"), and Joan Vollmer, in particular, was a serious participant in the marathon discussion-sessions.

San Francisco

Some time later there was much cross-pollination with San Francisco-area writers (Ginsberg, Corso, Cassady, and Kerouac each moved there for a time). Ferlinghetti (one of the partners who ran the City Lights Bookstore and press) became a focus of the scene as well as the older poet Rexroth, whose apartment became a Friday night literary salon. Ginsberg was introduced to Rexroth by an introductory letter from his mentor William Carlos Williams, an old friend of Rexroth's. When Ginsberg organized the famous Six Gallery reading in 1955, he had Rexroth serve as master of ceremonies; in a sense, Rexroth was bridging two generations. This reading included the first public performance of Ginsberg's poem Howl and thus it is considered one of the most important events in the history of the Beat Generation. It brought East Coast and West Coast poets together in public performance for the first time, and the reading quickly sparked a legend and led to many more readings around California by the now locally famous Six Gallery poets. Soon after the Six Gallery reading, Ferlinghetti wrote Ginsberg a letter, saying, "I greet you at the beginning of a brilliant career. When do I get the manuscript?" This was an adaptation of Emerson's comment about Whitman's poetry, a prophecy of sorts that Howl would bring as much energy to this new movement as Whitman brought to 19th-century poetry. This is also a marker of the beginning of the Beat movement, since the publication of Howl and the subsequent obscenity-trial brought nationwide attention to many of the other members of this group.

An account of the Six Gallery reading forms the second chapter of Jack Kerouac's 1958 novel The Dharma Bums, a novel whose chief protagonist is a character based on one of the poets who had read at the event, Gary Snyder (called "Japhy Ryder" in Kerouac's Roman à clef). Most of the people in the Beat movement had urban backgrounds and they found Snyder to be an almost exotic individual, with his rural and back-country experience, and his education in cultural anthropology and Oriental languages. Lawrence Ferlinghetti has referred to him as "the Thoreau of the Beat Generation". One of the primary subjects of The Dharma Bums is Buddhism, and the different attitudes that Kerouac and Snyder have towards it. The Dharma Bums undoubtedly helped to popularize Buddhism in the West.

Women of the Beat Generation

There is typically very little mention of women in a history of the early Beat Generation, and a strong argument can be made that this omission is largely a reflection of the sexism of the time, rather than a reflection of the actual state of affairs.

Joan Vollmer (later, Joan Vollmer Adams Burroughs) was clearly there at the beginning of the Beat Generation, and all accounts describe her as a very intelligent and interesting woman. But she did not herself write and publish, and unlike the treatment given to Neal Cassady, no one chose to write a book about her; although, she appears in multiple authors' works, under a variety of character names.[1]. Nevertheless, she has gone down in history as the wife of William S. Burroughs, who was killed by him in an accidental shooting-incident that resulted in Burroughs' conviction in Mexico of manslaughter.[2]

Joan is mentioned in On the Road, in the chapters dealing with Kerouac's and Cassady's visits to see "Old Bull Lee" (Burroughs) in New Orleans, where she is referred to as "Jane". She is described paradoxically as a distant woman who was "never more than 10 feet away from Old Bull" at any given time, giving the impression that she was complex and difficult to get to know.

Gregory Corso insisted that there were many female beats. In particular, he claimed that a young woman he met in mid 1955 (Hope Savage, also called "Sura") introduced Kerouac and Ginsberg to subjects such as Li Po and was in fact their original teacher regarding eastern religion (this claim must be an exaggeration, however: a letter from Kerouac to Ginsberg in 1954 recommended a number of works about Buddhism).

Corso insisted that it was hard for women to get away with a Bohemian existence in that era: they were regarded as crazy, and removed from the scene by force (e.g. by being subjected to electroshock). This is confirmed by Diane DiPrima (in a 1978 interview collected in The Beat Vision):

Potentially great women writers wound up dead or crazy. I think of the women on the Beat-scene with me in the early '50s, where are they now? I know Barbara Moraff is a potter and does some writing in Vermont, and that's about all I know. I know some of them ODed and some of them got nuts, and one woman that I was running around the Village with in '53 was killed by her parents putting her in a shock-treatment-place in Pennsylvania ...

However, a number of female beats have persevered, notably Joyce Johnson (author of Minor Characters); Carolyn Cassady (author of Off the Road); Hettie Jones (author of How I Became Hettie Jones); Joanne Kyger (author of As Ever; Going On; Just Space); Harriet Sohmers Zwerling; and the aforementioned Diane DiPrima (author of This Kind of Bird Flies Backward, Memoirs of a Beatnik, "Loba", "Recollections of My Life as a Woman: The New York Years"). Later, other women writers emerged who were strongly influenced by the beats, such as Janine Pommy Vega (published by City Lights) in the 1960s, and Patti Smith in the early 1970s.